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Saturday, February 24, 2024

EDMOND / CYRANO, MY LOVE (2018)

That’s Edmond, as in Edmond Rostand, turn-of-the-last century French-verse playwright, but don’t blame him for that ridiculous export title.  Author of CYRANO DE BERGERAC, by common consensus the greatest second-rate play in the canon.  So maybe there’s justice in a third-rate bio-pic, alas, not the greatest.  Instead, a rollicking embarrassment of clichés as Rostand & putative star Benoît-Constant Coquelin seek to create a hit play.  Writer/director Alexis Michalik has no shame inventing whimsical backstage shenanigans on the order of those old bio-pics where real life events ‘inspire’ an author/painter/composer/architect to immortality.  You know, Strauss hears a hunting horn, takes out a notebook and voila! . . . The Blue Danube is born.  The film has some fun with CGI cityscapes, creating a pop-up picture-book look instead of trying to convince. and there’s a clever bit for rival playwright Georges Feydeau that plays out like one of his farces.  Plus, theatrical tropes found in just about every backstager kick in by the third act.  You really care if the damn thing gets up & running.  Or would if Michalik hadn't just ‘cured’ a shy actor with a confidence-building dressing room blow-job.  A general rule of thumb on backstage bio-pics is that the only factual moment in the whole thing is sure to be the most unbelievable one.  Here, best guess is papering a skimpy opening night crowd with drunks & hookers, but I wouldn’t swear to it.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK: Considering its many  adaptations, CYRANO has been as unlucky on screen as it’s been lucky on stage.  For a good English verse translation, Anthony Burgess; his play not his musical, on B’way with Derek Jacobi.  Best known film adaptations all have the stink of an officially sanctioned ‘quality project’: 1950 with José Ferrer (verseless), 1990 with Gérard Depardieu (with verse), 2021 with Peter Dinklage (the verse).  Steve Martin’s modern take, ROXANNE/’87, charmed when it came out, but I wouldn’t risk a second viewing.  A brief scene made in 1900, with pre-recorded synch-sound via acoustic wax cylinder, from Benoît-Constant Coquelin (Olivier Gourmet plays him here) is merely a curiosity.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC4xgu40da8).  But a 1923 silent, directed by Augusto Genina and starring Pierre Magnier is the only film to get anywhere near the effortlessly overwhelming effect found in nearly any stage production.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK:  *Michalik claims inspiration from SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE/98 (it shows, it shows).  If only he’d gone with THE BAND WAGON/’53 or FRENCH CANCAN/’55.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-band-wagon-1953.html

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: To see how these things can be done without risking the cutes: CHOCOLAT/’16.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/02/chocolat-2016.html

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